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Dr. Sekar Praaghi
Summary Sekar Praaghi is a firebending doctor from the Capital. A pacifist and yet short tempered. He was introduced in November of 2009, still in play. Biography Sekar was born to a woman named Goya in the slums of the capital city on June the fourteenth. His family was poor and his mother worked as a housekeeper for a seamstress. She made little money, but it was just enough. Sekar was left alone under the eye of a neighbor in a shanty somewhere in the slum-town, but most of the time the neighbor ignored him. His father was being trained as a solider and after Sekar's fourth birthday, his birth father left for war and never returned. It was also at that time that Sekar’s bending began to manifest in the form of setting the curtains on fire and his mother spanking him. As Sekar grew he had to find food for himself most of the time since his mother worked day and night and barely had time to feed or care for him. His grandparents had little connection to him but Goya was good friends with a second cousin of hers, Hikari. The slums where he grew up were filthy and it was no surprise that when he was five his mother died of cholera. It was then that Hikari and Toya, two well known physicians that used firebending in medicine, stepped in. Toya and Hikari Praaghi adopted the boy because they knew his mother and felt it would be a kindness to her if they raised the boy. Knowing that Sekar had a lot of potential, more so as a firebender, they were also middle-upper class folks and knew that taking Sekar out of the shanty towns would be beneficial. Adjusting to a life that had adequate care was hard for Sekar at first. He didn’t have many manners and was very disruptive as a child. Toya disciplined him a lot for the first months of Sekar living with him at his clinic and home. Hikari was a lot more patient and she worked with Sekar on finding more constructive ways to deal with his adjustment. Sekar was brought to the clinic at a young age to watch and observe Toya and Hikari at work. It was fascinating to Sekar to watch Toya using firebending to treat wounds by cauterizing them. Also he noticed them heating materials to create certain poultices and salves. He also observed moxibustion and using heated hands and fingertips for massage. It was around age seven Sekar realized that firebending wasn’t purely destructive, it had medicinal uses too. During the time around ages eight and nine, Sekar’s education consisted of private tutelage under Hikari and Toya. This was mostly basic grammar, reading, writing and math. After academics, he was taught mostly by Hikari on medicine by memorizing charts showing chi nodes and chi paths, learning pressure points and how the organs worked. Evening was spent with after dinner sparing with Toya and learning how to control his firebending as well as learning the various katas and routines. Sekar enjoyed this the most for it was a good way to release a lot of energy and stress. This almost became a form of active meditation to clear his head and realign himself, he saw fire as purifier and a cleanser so it became a routine after meal times to practice firebending stances and firebending itself in field behind the clinic. Sekar, around ten through twelve, started to get more serious with medicine and focus most of his time taking what he had studied into practice. He was often with Hikari learning how to bandage wounds and apply ointments as well as practicing acupuncture with a dummy. Even though he focused on medicine he still spent time working on his firebending katas and occasionally sparred with some of his peers. His time was mostly taken up with study in the mornings and the afternoons observing and volunteering in the clinic doing everything from cleaning bedpans to feeding the enfeebled. He watched his father perform surgeries and took notes and was quizzed at home on what he learned. In the evenings he was doing firebending katas with Toya. He was constantly busy and didn’t have time for his peers and eventually grew distant with them the older he got. Around age thirteen, Sekar studied medicine relentlessly. It became more of an obsession. His bending became second to him, but he still regularly practiced. Going through adolescence Sekar felt left out by much of his peer’s activities. He also felt out of place among them because Sekar was a lot more learned than them. Also, since he was taught at home, he wasn’t exposed to the Fire Nation propaganda as much as the boys his age. He started forming his own opinions about the world and the war around age fifteen and sixteen. He denounced the gods for science and believed that the gods had no authority. He agreed with the idea of the Fire Nation civilizing the other countries, but believed that war was a poor vehicle for it. He was influenced by much of the censorship and the propaganda of the capital, but he often wondered about the other nations and wanted to learn more about them. He adopted a form of pacifism that reflected his medicinal practices. He used his bending for healing in the form of cauterization and sterilizing. He vowed never to be a solider or an ‘instrument of death’. Hikari was getting older as was Toya, they both agreed that Sekar should wed and hopefully sire a child to take on the practice. They choose Fushigo to be his bride. Fushigo was a daughter of Lao Bin, another physician. Fushigo also practiced medicine, but was not a firebender and specialized in midwifery. The friendship was slow with her and Sekar, she was a lot more stubborn and blunt around him. Sekar had never really had a relationship with a woman outside of a few acquaintances and the nurses he worked with, Yuka and Sarumi. However, he grew more and became closer with Fushigo, everything from taking slow walks around the shores surrounding the capital to philosophical conversations under the cherry trees. He enjoyed spending time with her, whether it be work or play. Sekar was falling in love with the fierier Fushigo. Around sixteen, he continued to court Fushigo and work hard in the clinic, his parents slowly began to let him treat patients unsupervised. He could set broken bones and treat minor injuries and sicknesses. Surgeries were still being monitored by his father. At age eighteen he was formally engaged to Fushigo Lao Bin, her father gave him his blessings. At age twenty-one he was officially a trained doctor and graduated by performing a solo surgery. Sekar married Fushigo at age twenty two. Their wedding was a small ceremony, with Fushigo’s and Sekar’s parents. Toya and Hikari were approaching their fifties and Toya was getting ill. Sekar and Fushigo lived in a small house near Sekar’s parent's main clinic. It was a year after Sekar’s wedding that he was drafted into the Fire Nation Home Guard as a fort medic. It was a hard decision, but Sekar left Fushigo to serve his country for two years. Sekar worked as a medic at small fort outside of the main capital for one year and spent another in a colony off the Earth Kingdom, which served as a port for soldiers that returned from the battle field at the Earth Kingdom and where new recruits left to fight. Sekar did mostly physicals for the new recruits and treated returning soldiers. He wrote to his mother and father occasionally when he had time, but letters to his parents and Fushigo were sparse. He heard many stories of the brutality of war. It made Sekar more solid in his belief that war was wrong and inherently destructive. Sekar returned to the capital after his two years of service, but everything was different and slowly getting worse. Fushigo had lost weight during his leave. Sekar thought she wasn’t eating enough and prescribed her to eat a dish of bone marrow to gain more weight. He also heard some more troubling news: his foster parents who raised and adopted him had died while he was gone. Toya suffered a heart attack and Hikari died a month after him. Troubled, Sekar still worked hard, as did Fushigo, running the clinic when Sekar turned twenty-four. Two other nurses joined him, a quiet woman named Tomo and a large busty girl named Motoko assisted Sekar in his routine. Sekar left again after he turned twenty-six to serve once more at the fort. He was reluctant to go because Fushigo was getting sicker and sicker. She was still loosing weight, plus she had not been sleeping well and suffered severe migraines. Sekar tried to find a way to cure her as he left for duty. He returned after another year and found Fushigo thin, weak and in pain. She could barely eat or sleep. Sekar spent months and months treating and working on a way to cure her. He was obsessed with trying to save his obviously dying wife. When Sekar was twenty-seven Fushigo died in her sleep. Sekar still didn’t know what killed her and refused to dissect his wife to find out. Watching her cremated was a painful and heart-wrenching experience that he could never forget. Fushigo's death made Sekar more of a bitter and self-hating person. The first two years he kept to himself and often lashed out at his nurses. He let himself go, smoked and drank often. He looked more feral and wild after five years. He obsessed over his work and studies and eventually stopped eating regularly. During the ten years to the present, Sekar withdrew from society. He became cold and bitter and avoided company. He didn’t like guests and only interacted with his nurses, who had stood by his side since Fushigo’s death, and patients. He spends most of his free time treating his patients and reading medical texts as well as writing his own. Sekar served his term and no longer had to work as a fort medic so he threw all his energy into his clinic, improving it and making more accessible for the impoverished. Sekar is often found alone in his study at the hospital or even in the graveyards. He still practices firebending to keep his skills sharp and strong. He isn’t a warrior, but his talent still is useful to his practice. Personality He's a peace-maker. He doesn't like violence very much. A man that prides himself as a pacifist, Sekar is the kind of person that wants to end fights more than start them. He's stern and sharp tempered, often using his voice to get people's attention and works well under deadlines and pressure. Sekar does have a bit of a temper and gets angered mostly through people more than situations. He hates being interrupted or bothered and looses a lot of sympathy when he is bothered. Sekar is an incredible problem solver and uses his head in difficult situations and often come up with ingenious solutions. He has little regard for his own health and well being. He often tests new solutions on himself before asking for volunteers, his nurses are aware of the self-experimentation and usually during the experimentation Sekar awkwardly asks for help. He enjoys pain mostly as a fetish, but keeps that little detail to himself and his nurses. Sekar doesn’t have much faith in the government or in religion. He finds nobility to be like wolves preying on the weak and religion a useless drug to sedate the masses. Even though the gods exist tangibly, he refuses to acknowledge them, mostly out of hate or disgust at their lack of empathy toward humans. He believes them to be apathetic entities that could care less about the human race. Though it is often said that one would find Dr. Praaghi mediating in graveyards, as a doctor he believes he has a special connection to the dead for his interactions with it and riding the edge of life and death. People often see him as intelligent and dutiful physician, but also as eccentric and anti-social. They would love Sekar to treat their flu or broken bones, but wouldn't invite him to dinner. Children are afraid of his gawky bird like appearance, despite his being fond of children because he is drawn to their endless imagination and curiosity. Sekar enjoys writing and playing Pai Sho as well as singing and playing dizi in his spare time. He is also fond of reading and writing medical journals. For him medicine is his life, he cannot fathom not being a doctor; however some deep seated part of him still wants to raise a family. Family (Biological parents) Father Karasu Hei'Miao (deceased) 'Mother '''Goya Hei'Miao (deceased) (Adoptive Parents) '''Father '''Toya Praaghi (deceased) '''Mother '''Hikari Praaghi (deceased) '''Wife '''Fushigo Praaghi (deceased) '''Friends: ' *Tomo (nurse) *Motoko (nurse) *Sarumi (nurse) *Yuka (nurse) *Hao Xing (mentor figure) Category:Fire Nation Category:Original Characters Category:Fire Bender